


Practice

by Heronymus



Category: Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-15
Updated: 2005-02-15
Packaged: 2019-04-29 07:19:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14467725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heronymus/pseuds/Heronymus
Summary: Inara asks the question I've always wanted to ask.





	Practice

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** For Laurie, a dear friend who keeps poking me to write these.  
>  I'm not sure when Mal and River switched places in my head, but the story is better for it.

  
Author's notes: For Laurie, a dear friend who keeps poking me to write these.  
I'm not sure when Mal and River switched places in my head, but the story is better for it.  


* * *

Practice

## Practice

A true Companion never stops practicing. 

There are the same number of hours in every day, and on the long spaces between planetfalls, there is much to fill the hours. Aside from the routine shuttle maintenance, most of which Kaylee handles quietly and brilliantly, there is always, always, practice. Including, of course, music: vocal and breathing techniques, merely to keep a hand in, since Inara's voice is middling, in the ranks of House Madrassa. That she knows a half-dozen places that would fall over themselves to make her the star soprano at the local opera house means nothing; everything in her life is measured by the standards of House Madrassa. So, a middling voice, and a fair hand with stringed instruments. 

Her living space has always been small. At the house, in the dormatories, she had only a steamer-trunk of space, kept at the foot of the bed. Closets were communal, shared with her six roommates. The clothes belonged to the House. Later, in upper classes, she had a single roommate, a room six by eight, and a closet of her own. Clothes and personal effects were hers, but the instruments and other, larger items were owned by the House. Now, on her shuttle, though she'd never mention it to Mal, she has the most space she's ever had. The whole of the shuttle, all hers, her own personal space. And still, no room for a proper piano, or a kitchen for preparing some of the finer delicacies she has been trained to make. Instead, she makes do, as one does when one is presented with less than ideal circumstance. She trains on the Box. 

It is a small thing, compact, perhaps the size of a loaf of hand-baked bread. A telescoping neck, a setting for the number and type of strings needed. A small power supply. A touch of the display, and it can form more than one hundred stringed instruments of various types. Inara is not particularly gifted with instruments, so she only seriously studied six: violin, guitar, lap harp, _ruan_ , _luiquin_ , and cello. And piano, of course, but piano doesn't count, everyone learns piano. With the box, she practices. All the hours of the day. 

The shuttle, her home, is a refuge. It is more space than she has ever known to herself, and private, all hers and hers alone. No House Mother to check under the bed for dust bunnies (she checks herself, and vaccuums at least once a day), no roommate to leave clothes strewn about willy-nilly, no one to share the space with. Nandi, she was a love. A year ahead of her in classes, they shared a room, and as an only child, it was suddenly strange and wonderful to have someone to call _jie jie_ , with all the frustration and love that entailed, complete with fights and late-night crying sessions and all the thousand things that friends, that family, entails. When Nandi left, it was a fortelling of things to come, for one is ever destined to follow in the shadow of family that comes before, for good or ill. 

There are times, though, when the shuttle, as big as it is, as luxurious as it is, is not large enough to contain all of herself. Inara's energy becomes too much, and she strolls through Serenity, what Kaylee calls "doin' laps" in that honey-warm voice of hers. Around the catwalk, down the stairs, around the Cargo Bay, then past the infirmary and the cabins, up the stairs, past the engine room, down the Long Hall to the bridge, then down and around to the catwalk again. Again and again and again. Just to be moving, be somewhere other than the shuttle. Inara spends time in Shuttle Two, as well. Angry, or sad, or frustrated by something Mal has done, she will stride across to the utilitarian craft and empty out her emotions, sometimes crying, but usually screaming in rage. The bundled-tight emotions would linger in her home if she let them out, echoing forever at least in her memory of the space, if not the space itself, so she refuses to be anything but pleasant and happy in her space. The other shuttle, its bare gunmetal walls and sharp edges, soaks up her tumult and gives back nothing. It is empty, and by going there she comes out again, empty. 

The Cargo Bay, though, is space. There is nothing she can say, no emotion she can express, that fills it up. She has seen it full of cargo, she has seen it full of action, she has seen it full of violence, but it never seems to be filled up when she is in it, in the long dark hours of the night. She finds Mal there, sometimes, too. Sitting or standing, listening to the not-silence that passes for quiet: the hum of the air in the vents, the throb of the engine, any of the thousand creaks and pops and moans that metal makes when it is hot or cold or under stress from the grav. It is not silence, but the mind hears it as such, the ears filter out everything until what is left is a space in the mind, to match the space in the Bay, and the space outside. 

It is so late as to be nearly early, tonight. If every night could be her last, if she really is leaving Serenity, leaving her home, then all the hours she can she will experience this place. It is more a home to her than the place she was born, or the Guild House, or anywhere else. And she wants memories to remember this place by, when she leaves; not the heated arguments and unkind words between her and Mal, but good memories, loving memories, that she could one day look back on without sadness. 

She brings the Box and a small stool to the center of the Bay. Sitting on her stool, back ramrod-straight, she hears the echoes of her movement. With all the random detritus of shipboard life strewn seemingly-haphazardly about the bay, the acoustics ought to be much like the inside of a rolled-up sock. Instead, something in the bay makes it lovely and resonant, each noise echoed back to the center. She wonders if the sounds carry better to the catwalks; she certainly can hear everything when the crew plays a round of Bundleball, or when Jayne and Mal shift cargo. 

A touch here, a touch there, and the Box is configured. Violin, harp and the rest can be played comfortably and pleasantly in the small space that is the shuttle, but for true practice of the cello, space must be had. It is simulated sound, of course; a very good (and very expensive) simulation, but a simulation nontheless. But it is practice: position, fingering, bowing, breathing, all practice so that she can, with a few minutes notice, pick up, tune, and play a client's cello, or a rented cello, at the client's behest. 

Back straight, bow at the ready, she closes her eyes, and composes her mind. And then, she begins. 

Fast, at the start, a moderate tempo. _Pianissimo_ : very soft, at the beginning. Building, with long strokes of lower notes, a trickle of higher ones floating above the base line, building. A little faster, now. Bach's Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello have survived nearly a thousand years with little change as to the measure of their genius. The math is present in abundance: eighth-notes and sixteenth-notes and quarter-notes and whole-notes, set seemingly randomly on the page but, when played, expressing a beauty that can bring men to tears. _Piano-forte_ , now; medium soft, literally "soft-hard". Wade through the valleys of low notes, climb the peaks of high notes, tracing the waves on the sea as they float by in the music. The echoes in the bay are like water rushing past, crashing against the walls and flooding back to the center again, to still. The finish, when it comes, crecendoes with a _forte_ notation, loud, and then drifts back to soft again as the last notes drift off. A short warm-up piece, to be sure, but she is breathing quickly, for all that; it's not the work, but the emotion that has quickened her. 

Inara pauses a moment, and in that space of breath she hears a breath blow out. She looks up, and there is river, legs dangling in space, sitting on the catwalk. She is breathing heavily, too, though she is not moving. 

"River, sweetie, are you feeling well? How long have you been sitting there?" 

There is nothing, for a moment, and Inara stands and leans the Box against the stool, carefully. The box could be dropped from the catwalk onto the floor and still function perfectly, but this is practice, and she treats it like she would a real cello: delicately, gracefully. When she looks up again, River is halfway down the stairs at the turn. Like a cat, suddenly, swiftly, and silently, she moves towards Inara. There is the barest moment of fear, and Inara quells it nearly instantly. And yet, River has stopped, stock still halfway down the stairs, a look of pain on her face so profound...and, in a moment, it is gone too. Nearly instantly. 

"River, darling, are you having trouble sleeping? Would you like me to make you some tea?" 

" _Ni shi xi xiao zei._ " 

"River!" Inara is shocked, to be so accused. 

"You are, you know. A petty little thief, stealing away the scraps he's just begun to hoard again, after so long without. It's hard for him: happiness, wanting. He's out of practice." 

"Who--" but she doesn't finish the question. Mal is the 'he' in question, of course. 

"You think you know what's best. You've been wrong before; why do you think you're right, now?" 

"River, listen--" 

"I'm the _mei mei_ , now. _Jie jie_ is gone and gone. But is Mommy such a bad role?" 

"I--" 

"It's just practice, anyway. It's just a moment in time. Step aside, and let it happen." 

And she's gone again, like a spooked cat, up the stairs and away. 

Inara turns, and sits down again, reclaiming the Box and the bow and setting her elbows and straightening her back. Again, always again. A true Companion never stops practicing. 

And in the silence before the first note, she wonders. When does the practice end, and the living begin?

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:   **Practice**   
Author:   **Heronymus**   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **G**  |  **gen**  |  **9k**  |  **02/15/05**   
Characters:  Inara, River   
Summary:  Inara asks the question I've always wanted to ask.   
Notes:  For Laurie, a dear friend who keeps poking me to write these.   
I'm not sure when Mal and River switched places in my head, but the story is better for it.   
  



End file.
